


metamorphose

by sea_level



Category: Project Blue Book (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Character Study, F/F, Fae!Susie Miller, Piano, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 04:45:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18613414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sea_level/pseuds/sea_level
Summary: (H) Mimi deals with feelings of inadequacy, falls in love with a Russian spy, and then runs away with her.(T) Susie's been trapped under human control for centuries. She falls in love and sets herself free.





	metamorphose

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not...too happy with my phrasing in this, but this was supposed to be very short, and I fell asleep five times while proofreading, and I'm _supposed_ to be working on schoolwork.
> 
> I started this a week ago since I got stuck on the long fic again (dialogue to blame). Got very big very fast and very easily. I'm honestly very surprised.

**HEADS**

The marketplace is a wonder. It’s not much, barely more than a small community effort organized by local residents and farmers to try to keep the local economy alive, but there’s a spirit to it that Mimi can appreciate. The apples here are always a little redder. The clothing has more personality. The people are much friendlier.

Mimi doesn’t visit often, and the marketplace is temporary, only set up a few times a month. It’s more about the adventure than the shopping trip, like letting the ocean water run up to her feet but knowing that she’ll never jump in. This isn’t her world.

Yet sometimes she catches herself wondering if it could be.

She watches the woman arrange flowers in a vase. It appears random at first, but, as time passes and she continues to work, Mimi sees something beautiful come to life. There’s a hidden art there that Mimi doesn’t understand. Curiosity pries at her mind for a moment. What would a life where she’d learned to do such things look like?

But it feels too late in her life to wonder about such things. She’s a homemaker and a mother now. She’s only in her twenties, but her course is set, and it feels useless to wonder about things like this in relation to herself.

She goes instead to a baker’s booth and takes her time to marvel at the bread and pastries. The fine tapestries one stall over are beyond the reach of her budget, but they are beautiful and appear almost to be alight with fire when the sunlight runs through them.

* * *

Mimi had never learned the delicate art of knitting, though she imagines she will someday. It seems like the natural progression of things with regards to her role in the family. She’s never met a grandmother who couldn’t knit.

She knows how to sew, of course. It was a skill her mother had ensured she’d mastered while she was still at a young age. She’d hovered over her shoulder, critiquing every stitch, scrutinizing every misstep. Mimi had learned well, but she still avoids the needle when she can.

Her mother had taught her a great many things. How to cook. How to clean. How to keep her brothers in line. How to put up a veneer. How to make everything look okay.

It feels incomplete now.

There’s always something to be confused about. Allen always speaks of things beyond her grasp. The nurse who helps set the cast on Joel’s broken arms points and says words that she doesn’t understand.

It feels almost like the world is foreign to her, like she isn’t meant to live in it, only to observe it.

* * *

There’s a piano in the park, near the rec center. It’s well maintained and under a canopy so that it’s kept safe from the vagaries of the weather.

A man in a black suit and bowler hat sits down on the bench every Tuesday and Friday at noon. He plays, tapping out beautiful jazz songs with an incredible force of personality. He does this for an hour straight and then he leaves.

Mimi shuffles things around in her schedule and plans ahead so that she’s there each time.

The first few times, it’s overwhelming. It sounds like pure art, a religious experience for the ears.

By the tenth time, she starts to pick out patterns and begins to truly appreciate the man’s technical and interpretive prowess. She knows some of the songs from the radio, but they sound different here, transformed. Metamorphosed.

The man takes notice of her eventually. He stands up at the end of his hour and walks over to her.

He asks, “Do you play?”

“I don’t,” Mimi replies. “Your skill is incredible.”

The man smiles. “Would you like to learn?” he asks. “I could teach you.”

“I couldn’t ask that of you,” Mimi says with a grateful smile and a shake of her head. “I have nothing to offer of you in return.”

“I don’t require payment,” the man says. “I would like to do it, regardless. The only thing I request is that you don’t ask my name.”

“Why not?” Mimi asks. It's such a strange request.

“I don’t want it getting around that this is where I spend my lunch break,” he says.

And so they begin.

They meet at the same time and place, noon and always at the park. It’s a slow moving process. First, there are scales and then there are chords, and, at the start, the man says a lot of words that Mimi doesn’t understand, but this time around she learns what they all mean. She starts to get how things come together.

Before she can learn to improvise, she had to learn the basics. Except months pass by before she’s done with the basics, and even then she’s still learning, still familiarizing herself with the keys, forcing it to feel a little more comfortable, a little more like home.

“You’re a fast study,” the man says. “You’ve made good progress in the limited time we’ve had. There’s a sharp mind up there.”

“I get frustrated, sometimes,” Mimi confesses. “I feel like I should be learning faster.”

“I wasn’t born playing the piano,” the man replies. “These things take time. Unless there’s a particular reason for you to be in a rush?”

Mimi shakes her head. “There's nothing. I haven’t even told anyone that I’m learning.”

The man’s smile is sympathetic. “Then be easy on yourself. People are often patient with others but not with themselves. Don’t let that be you.”

Their lessons continue for three years. In that entire time, Mimi never learns the man’s name, and he never bothers to ask for hers, so she never provides it.

“I think next week will be our final lesson,” the man says, tracing his fingers over the keys. “I am leaving Columbus soon.”

“May I ask why?” Mimi asks.

“No particular reason,” the man says. He turns to look out over the park. “I just feel like maybe I’ve been away from my people too long.”

“Your people?” Mimi asks.

The man smiles but doesn’t say anything more on the topic.

Mimi never ends up telling anyone about her piano playing. She returns to the park at the same times to play and to practice. She’s still not as good as the man, and she probably never will be, but she’s proud of her progress, and that’s really the important part, isn’t it?

So the piano is her secret, her special skill that’s her secret and her treasure, and when someone says something she doesn’t understand, she doesn’t feel so bad, because maybe, _maybe_ , if she took the time and put forth the effort, she might be able to understand it too someday. She just needs somewhere to start.

* * *

Mimi’s always wondered what might have happened if she’d gone to college. Her parents had refused to pay for one of their daughters to attend, and Mimi had felt like she didn’t have enough direction to justify spending all of the money she’d earned through waitressing on higher education.

What would have happened if she’d known what to do? What would have happened if she’d taken her brief fascination with botany and run with it? What would have happened if she’d signed up for a nursing program? Would she even have had the drive to finish it if her heart wasn’t into her work? Would she have come to love it?

She finds herself driven to learn things sometimes, but she still has no idea where to start. Allen has books, but when she takes a look at them, she knows she’ll never be able to learn anything from just reading them. She just doesn’t have the mind for it.

She’s too busy now to really be able to return to school full time. Joel needs a parent, and a lot of that responsibility lies with her. She’s still a homemaker, and, despite what some people think, it does eat up a considerable amount of her time. The only reason she doesn’t have a strict schedule is that she’s made the decision not to put herself on one.

She’d talk to Allen about it, and he’d probably encourage her to try to take a class or two, but he doesn’t understand how busy her day is from day to day, and she’d hate to drag him away from his work to pick up more of the responsibilities for something that’s little more than an occasional passing fancy.

She’s happy. She’s content with the life she had right now, even if she has to remind herself of that fact sometimes.

* * *

Susie is a lot like Mimi wants to be. She’s got an independence and a capability about her.

Maybe the quality she has that Mimi admires the most (and maybe even envies a little) is that no matter where she is, she always seems like she belongs.

She always fits in, even in that seedy little underground bar that Mimi had oh so fallaciously brought her to when they’d first met.

It's not that Mimi doesn't fit into society, because she does. She doesn't draw odd stares, and most of the time she manages to blend in pretty well. It's always more that she tends to feel out of her depth.

She lacks the confidence that Susie exudes, and for some reason, that draws her to Susie like a magnet. It certainly doesn't hurt that Susie seems to be just as receptive.

* * *

Susie calls on Mimi to pick her up from the police station.

Mimi shows up about ten minutes afterward, having driven a little faster than strictly legal.

“Is everything okay?” Mimi asks, worried, as she opens the passenger-side door to let Susie get in.

Susie shakes her head. “I don’t know. I’m not supposed to talk about it, but they found Donna’s body. They think I’m the one that killed her.”

“Why?” Mimi asks, aghast.

Susie shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe because I’m new to town? They don’t have a case yet, but they made sure to tell me that I was a suspect.”

Susie looks shaken. Mimi’s seen her scared before, but this time there’s something more to it, more thorough and absolute. Mimi’s about to offer to drop her off at her house, but something tells her that that isn’t what Susie needs right now. She probably needs someone to keep her company so that she doesn’t feel alone through this whole ordeal.

“Do you want me to spend the night?” Mimi asks. “Or you can come over to mine if you’d like.”

The look on Susie’s face is so openly relieved that Mimi’s glad she asked.

“I’d love for you to come over,” Susie says, “if it’s not too much trouble. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you.”

“It’s no trouble,” Mimi says. “Joel’s away on a field trip, and Allen’s at work. You know how it is. I enjoy your company.”

“Thank you,” Susie says, placing a gentle hand on Mimi’s arm and Mimi starts the car.

* * *

Susie’s sitting on Mimi’s couch when Mimi figures it out.

“It was you,” Mimi says. “You were the one that was spying on me.”

Susie drops her head in shame, but Mimi continues.

“You framed Jack.” Mimi turns to her with wide eyes. “And Donna! What did you do with Donna?”

“I buried her,” Susie says.

“You killed her?” Mimi exclaims, but Susie shakes her head.

“Mikhail killed her,” Susie says, the name grating across her throat. “I suppose he thought she was too nosy and was going to become a problem. I didn’t know she had died until saw her body.”

Mimi lets out a soft cry. “How could you?”

“I didn’t enjoy the task,” Susie says sharply and then her face crumples. “I never wanted her to die.”

“And this, Mikhail,” Mimi says, “who is he?”

“He was my handler,” Susie says, “the one who made sure that I did everything I was supposed to. He posed as my husband.”

“Your husband!” Mimi pats the pocket of her dress to see if she has any cigarettes, but there’s nothing inside. She throws her hands up and turns away, but she stops. Waih, was?”

“Mikhail is dead,” Susie explains. “I killed him.”

“You killed him?” Mimi stares at her. She has so many questions, more than she can conceivably ask at one time, but Susie’s seems content to just sit there and answer everything that’s asked of her. God, it all hurts so much.

“I did,” Susie replies. “He wanted me to use you to blackmail Hynek into giving him information about Project Blue Book.”

Mimi likes to think that she can read between the lines pretty well, that she’s not so obtuse that she’ll miss things that are right in front of her. She knows what this means, even if she doesn’t particularly want to admit it.

“You were using me to get information about Project Blue Book,” Mimi says. She lifts a hand to her mouth and leans against the wall for support as her head begins to swim.

Susie’s head falls down again and she seems to curl into herself. She’s obviously ashamed of what she’s done, but Mimi doesn’t care. She doesn’t want to care.

“Did any of it mean anything?” Mimi asks desperately. “It was all a lie, right? Get close to me. Get information. Report it to—” Mimi blanches and then forces down the lump in her throat. “Report it to the Russians.”

“It wasn’t supposed to mean anything,” Susie says. “That was... That was what I was supposed to do, and I did do it for a while. For what it’s worth, and I know it’s not worth much, I fell in love with you.”

She— What?

"What?" Mimi stares at her. "Why?"

Susie finally seems to muster the courage to look up, and, when she does, Mimi can finally see the raw despair and regret behind her eyes.

"Is there ever only one reason to fall in love with someone?" Susie asks. “I could start making a list. It would never be complete.”

Mimi’s heart softens, despite her reservations. 

“Talk to me,” Mimi says. “I want to understand.”

Susie hesitates though a look of determination comes through a second later. “I’ll tell you everything that I can,” she says.

* * *

Mimi opens the door to reveal Susie standing on the other side. She’s clinging to a large bag with the strap slung over her shoulder.

“Susie!” Mimi exclaims in surprise and waves her in, locking the front door behind her. “Is everything alright? Is it the investigation.”

Susie shakes her head. “No, they’re stalled. It’s my superiors. Word’s gotten back to Russia that I killed Mikhail, and my insistence that he’d been found out by the Americans didn’t stick. They’re coming here to deal with me.”

“Oh my God,” Mimi says, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. “What are you going to do?”

“I have to leave,” Susie says. “They’ll hunt me down, and this is my _only_ chance to disappear.”

“Where will you go?” Mimi says. “Is there any way I can help?”

Susie shakes her head and looks to the side. “I don’t know yet. I shouldn’t stay in any one place for too long. I can’t ask you to involve yourself in this. I could never forgive myself if I get you in any more trouble.”

“Hey,” Mimi says. She walks over to where Susie’s standing, just a few feet away from from the door, and places a gentle hand on her arm, guiding her to the kitchen. “Let me get you some water.”

She sits Susie down at the dining room table and then goes to the cupboards for a glass. The brief solitude gives her brain the space it needs to process this information. Susie’s in grave danger. Susie can’t stay here anymore. Susie’s _leaving_. For some reason, the point that sticks out the most is that she might never see her again.

“I want to go with you,” Mimi says, setting down the filled glass in front of Susie on the table.

“Mimi,” Susie says, and she’s got this look on her face that’s soft and affectionate and heartbreaking, and Mimi knows she’s about to turn her down.

“And before you say anything, I know what I’m doing,” Mimi continues. “I really want to go with you.”

“Mimi, you have a family,” Susie says like it’s final.

“I love you,” Mimi says. Even though she’s never said it before, the second that it’s out of her mouth, she knows it’s true.

“Mimi,” Susie says again except this time it’s desperate.

Mimi pulls one of the chairs out, sets it so that it’s facing Susie, and sits down. “I do love you,” Mimi says. “I’m not just saying it to convince you. I want to go with you. If you go, I’ll never see you again, and I don’t want that, so I have to go with you.”

Susie opens her mouth to say something, but after a few seconds of silence, she picks up her glass and takes a sip. When she’s done, she sets it back down and then carefully, hesitantly rests her hands on Mimi’s. She stares into Mimi’s eyes searchingly for what feels like an eternity and then ducks her head.

“I can stay here one more day,” Susie says. “I want you to think about it. I want you to seriously consider it, because being on the run is a horrible, horrible thing, and the only reason I’m even considering it is because I respect your ability to choose what you want.”

“Alright,” Mimi says. “One day.”

“Thank you,” Susie says. “I’ll come back here tomorrow afternoon for your decision.”

Susie stays over a little while longer, though not as long as Mimi would like. When she walks out the front door, there’s a finality to it that leaves Mimi’s heart echoing hollowly in her chest.

That alone is enough to convince her that she’s made the right decision.

* * *

“I know it sounds crazy,” Mimi says. “You probably think I’m crazy.”

Allen looks at her, soft and strangely understanding. “I don’t think you’re crazy,” he says. “After everything I’ve seen, this is shockingly normal.”

“I’m going with her,” Mimi says, and they’re probably the hardest words she’s ever had to say in her entire life. “I have to.”

“You love her?” Allen asks.

Mimi feels tears begin to prick at the corners of her eyes and she nods. “I do.”

“Go with her, then,” Allen says. He covers one of her hands with his own. “I’ll be alright.”

“Joel?” Mimi asks.

“ _We’ll_ be alright,” Allen revises. “It’s about time I pick up some of the slack.”

“Can you?” Mimi wants to believe he can, but...

“I can,” Allen assures her. “I’ll do everything to make it work. I want you to be happy, and if Susie makes you happy, then you should go.”

It’s too much. It’s all too much. Mimi grabs Allen’s face and presses a kiss to his cheek.

“Stay safe, though,” Allen says. “Promise me that. That you’ll stay safe.”

“I will,” Mimi says. “I promise.”

* * *

The sky is empty and vast. Only a few clouds are left scattered and stretched across the firmament as the last rays of sunlight throw up their beams and reflect brilliant colors onto them.

Susie’s car roars across the road with an infinite consistency, and Mimi begins to wonder if it really can drive on forever without ever stopping.

Susie, on the other hand, looks frayed and pale and very much at the end of some kind of rope. Her knuckles are white where her hands are gripping the steering wheel, and there’s this faint hint of fear behind her eyes.

They may be on the run, but the Susie that Mimi knows now would never cower in the face of what they’re up against.

“Something’s wrong,” Mimi says, and Susie turns to look at her, startled.

“You’re not having second thoughts?” Susie asks. “I can turn back.”

Mimi shakes her head. “No. That isn’t it. I’m in this, just like I said. There’s something up with you that aren’t telling me. What’s got you so worried?”

Susie takes a deep, shuddering breath and then flips on the turn signal. She pulls the car off the freeway, and it rolls over the gravel until it comes to a stop. Susie puts the car in park but keeps looking out the windshield. The moment seems to stretch on for eons, but, eventually, she sighs and turns to look at Mimi.

“I can feel it,” Susie says, gesturing to the space between them. “There’s this horrible rift. I’ve broken your trust so severely, I’m afraid it will never heal.”

Mimi catches Susie’s hand and draws closer until she can place it over her heart.

Susie tugs back lightly in a half-hearted attempt to free herself, but Mimi doesn’t let her go. “I have more secrets,” Susie says. “There’s more, and I want to tell you, but I can’t.”

“Tell me,” Mimi says.

“I can’t,” Susie pleads. “I try to speak, and the words don’t come out. It’s locked away.” She swallows and then says as if it's some last resort, “There is a way. Do you trust me?”

“I trust you,” Mimi says. In everything, now. More than she should.

Susie hesitates, her apprehension almost tangible in the air. She says, “Kiss me.”

At Mimi’s prolonged and confused silence, she adds, “It must be done willingly.”

Mimi takes a breath. She wants to. God, does she want to, but all the little parts of her brain that she’s been working so hard to ignore start screaming at her all at once. She shoves them down. She’s in control now. This is her freedom.

Mimi leans across the bench and presses her lips to Susie’s and—

Warmth and power flood through her, banishing the doubts and the fears that had been creeping along in her mind. It vibrates through her, from her mouth to her core, to her limbs, and her fingertips are left tingling as she clutches tight to Susie’s hand, a precious possession she would be loathed to release.

When the kiss ends, held much longer than usual for what was really just a touch on the lips, and Mimi sits back in her seat, Susie is glowing. She’s actually, genuinely glowing in a way that is neither metaphor nor human.

Her head is adorned by flowers, foliage, and antlers. The angles of her face have sharpened, and when Mimi looks directly into her eyes the world tilts on its axis and reality begins to slip away.

Mimi turns her head sharply to the side. “What are you?” she asks.

“I am of the fae,” Susie says. “I didn’t think you would see.” Her voice is like the windchimes, soft and tinkling, but it echoes with an otherworldly quality. She reaches over and gently takes Mimi’s hands, her skin unnaturally warm. “You are Touched. You glow here.”

Mimi looks down at her hands, but they look the same as they always have.

“Here too,” Susie says, reaching up to softly touch the skin just to the side of Mimi’s lips. “But that is my mark.”

“You’re a fairy?” Mimi asks.

“Fae,” Susie says. “Close but not quite.”

Mimi laughs, a little hysterically. “To be honest, that really wasn’t what I was expecting.” Like this, Susie looks strange and wild and powerful. Though these words may have described Susie in the past, they manifested here with an absolute physicality. There is no room for denial or argument.

“How would you know?” Susie asks. Her hand trails downward until it rests on Mimi’s own hands. “It would be such a strange thing to guess.”

“What happened?” Mimi asks. “Why did I need to kiss you?”

“Centuries ago, I was bound to human servitude, unable to speak my truth until the condition was met,” Susie says. “My captors thought my kind incapable of love, so they thought that if they made it so that I must be kissed willingly by the object of my affection, then I could never conceivably be free of their control.”

“That’s horrible,” Mimi says, still caught up on the fact that Susie isn’t human and that fairies even exist in the first place.

“I will never lie to you again,” Susie says, her smile is soft, and lights twinkle across her face. “I can’t.”

* * *

**TAILS**

Susie doesn’t remember her birth, but she’s told it was a sight to behold. She’d sprung, young and fully formed from blessed ground, adorned by the Earth. The sun had empowered her, had set fire to the heart-star inside of her.

She remembers the years that came afterward. Centuries of living in the forest and snow. Centuries of symbiosis.

Then the humans came, and they were strange. They had different rules, contrary and contradicting, and it was a marvelous puzzle. The humans were of the earth, yet not of the trees and certainly not of the sun. They paid respects for what they took, but they did it out of tradition and respect and not out of a sense of obligation. Their words were unbound and free. They were not inherently tricky folk. Brutish and uncivilized. No ultra-complex social structure. So few rules. That was the first impression.

What Susie and her siblings had failed to realize was that the humans had a nasty little habit of learning things they really ought not to. Perception. Pattern recognition. A nigh infinite capacity for wit.

She didn’t expect to get trapped. She didn’t expect her own rules to be used so cruelly against her.

But these weren’t the same humans that had arrived. These were the humans who had lost their love of the earth. These were the humans who looked at her with a cold, analytical eye. These were the humans that had sacrificed their wonder for greed.

These were the children of the children of the children of the children (of so many children she and the others had ceased trying to keep track) of those who had first arrived. They had evolved into a formidable enemy that should not have existed in the first place.

* * *

Magic interacts strangely with humans. It is not innate in them, but when they find ways to use it, it lives just above their skin and in the places between their cells. They are not beings of magic. They can’t be.

A human is a void, a mechanical creature like the animals of the forest. They bind magic to objects and body parts and claim it as their own

Susie is composed of magic. Born of magic, sustained by magic, she is magic and nothing else. The grand cruelty of it is that she (and all her siblings) can be bound.

She is taught Duty and then she is given it. She is taught Punishment and Helplessness and Loneliness.

She gains an irreconcilable emptiness that threatens to tear her apart, yet no matter how much she wills it, she remains alive and trapped.

The first few years are nothing. Clean the house, cook the food, warn away visitors with bad intentions, make the plants look pretty and keep them alive and healthy.

The generations blur, and her ownership is passed on from father to son to grandson and so on until the humans forget her origin and only remember her utility. Susie doesn’t forget. She remembers in exact detail the moment of her entrapment. She’ll never forget. The anger and spite are permanent inhabitants in her heart, keeping the memory fresh.

Her role changes as the strange human invention of war begins to evolve into something twisted and complex. Anger and violence she understands, but this intellectual component begins to evolve. There’s pride, now, in destruction, and the humans begin to dedicate their entire existence to greed and ownership.

They no longer pay their respects to the ground from which they take.

The land around her becomes devoid of magic. It wilts and fades and Susie becomes suddenly and irreconcilably alone.

She misses the land where she came from, but she’s been moved to this horrible place. She is made to kill now, to lie and trick and take.

She is called a spy and an agent and "an integral part of this program" and they thank her. They thank her for her loyalty, and all she wants to do is to tear them limb from limb and sacrifice their bones to the earth.

She wants to feel that magic in the ground again. She wants to stop feeling alone.

* * *

The bounds must be weakening. Her hands shake, but the cigarette helps to calm the beating of her heart.

Mikhail is dead. She killed him. Her keeper is dead.

She’s not free, not yet. If someone comes to reclaim her, there’s no doubt they’ll reel her back in and strip her of the rest of her freedom.

She needs to go. She needs to get out of here.

Her heart yearns to go see Mimi despite the inherent dangers. There’s no way she can disappear without letting Mimi know first. She couldn’t dare to do it. It would be far too cruel.

There’s still some other stuff she needs to take care of first.

She approaches Michael because she knows him. There’s a little song and dance. She needs her freedom, and he needs information, but it’s a bit like a hostage exchange. Give up too much and you’ve already lost.

It’s a long week before they manage to negotiate a plan of action, purely through subtext. There’s something beautiful in their conversations that Susie can appreciate. It reminds her of the Old Law and she wonders if her siblings still practice it, still tie their lives to it. She hasn’t seen any of them in so long.

Michael is no doubt exhausted by the end of it. He’s only human. Implicit meanings don’t come to him seconds after they’re spoken, and Susie may be guilty of leaving particularly complex messages to decipher, a little too caught up in the joy of being able to do it again.

When they finally speak to each other straight, though, all of this pretense falls away.

Susie tells him what she can about the projects and operations she was involved in. She doesn’t know everything. Her superiors had decided to keep the most crucial information away from her as they did with all their agents.

She cannot talk about the fae. The bounds still hold her tongue.

Michael gravely takes down the information she does give him, and, when he is done, he thanks her and ensures that she should not run into any problems with the US military, or at least none more than she ordinarily might.

He takes the small, unofficial file folder he had put together on her and destroys it before her eyes.

* * *

Mimi. Mimi is everything.

She’s the key to this whole puzzle. She slots into that place in Susie’s heart that had been hollowed out by her captors and helps Susie to feel full again.

Mimi isn’t magic and yet...

When Susie had first met her, all she had seen was a mission objective wrapped up in a nice body. By the end of that first meeting, Susie had seen opportunity and something strange and strong like the rolling of thunder on the horizon.

The more time and the more exposure, the more intense this feeling grew, so much so that she became convinced that maybe Mimi wasn’t entirely human. There was no way for her to see for sure. Her Sight had been one of the things that had been stripped from her.

But no. Mimi was wholly, entirely human and that strange feeling that had begun to grow in flourish and Susie’s core wasn’t like recognizing like but some other emotion that Susie had never felt before.

It was similar to how she felt about the earth. There was a kinship and a belonging there, but, unlike the earth, there seemed to be this additive effect in Mimi’s presence. Instead of simply feeling like she was coming home, it felt like she was rediscovering home each and every single time and new and beautiful and marvelous ways.

She’d heard of love before from her siblings, so she knew that it existed, but it was another thing entirely to feel it.

* * *

It’s raining when they enter the theater’s lounge, though Susie keeps them dry so they don’t have to hurry.

It’s warm inside but quiet. It’s a bit of an odd time, a late morning on a weekday, so most of the normal patrons are at home or work.

Mimi breaks away when Susie goes to the booth to get their tickets. She whispers a quick, “Be right back,” but when she doesn’t return when the transaction’s complete, Susie goes looking for her.

She finds Mimi seated at a piano on the other side of the room. It’s uncovered, open for public use.

“Do you play?” Susie asks.

“I haven’t in a while,” Mimi says. “I haven’t had much opportunity.”

“I imagine it’s a bit like riding a bike,” Susie says.

Mimi presses one of the keys. “I never learned to ride a bike. It feels familiar, but like there’s still a bridge I have to cross for it to feel like home again.” She sets both her hands on the piano, takes a breath, and closes her eyes.

The song she plays is soft and joyful. Adventurous. She stops and starts at times, and it sounds a little rough, but a few minutes in, she starts to get the hang of it and it starts to flow. She starts to experiment and improvise and add, and it’s beautiful, even if she still trips up from time to time.

“That’s beautiful,” Susie says, placing her hands on Mimi’s shoulders and stepping forward so that she’s just behind her. 

“I’m surprised I remembered it.” Mimi leans back against her. “You’re the first person who’s ever seen me play, if you ignore the man who taught me.”

“You didn’t tell Allen?” Susie asks, surprised.

“Didn’t feel the need,” Mimi says. “I never figured out how to bring it up and then it just never happened.”

“I’m honored that you decided to share it with me,” Susie says. She takes one of Mimi’s hands off the keyboard and kisses it. They’re a little hidden in the corner of the room, so it feels a bit like a private space, just for the two of them. In this moment, they’re free to love and to exchange their love.

Mimi’s hands glow brighter now, but Mimi herself looks particularly beautiful here, a shy confidence shining in her eyes and pulling up at the corners of her lips. Susie will kiss her in the way she deserves later.

**Author's Note:**

> Me: Hey what if I did a character study for Mimi  
> Me, a little while later: Hey what if, instead, I made it compliant to the monthly prompt  
> Me, a few days later: Hey what do you mean I'm 3k words in, and I still have 8 scenes to finish


End file.
